Position Sought:
A full-time position or long-term contract for development and support
of scientific software in which I can apply my expertise in secure
client-server applications, technical database systems and web
content management. The ideal position would leverage my experience
with classified government and non-government organizations and my
demonstrated ability to create highly original solutions for
scientific, technical and/or mathematical knowledge workers
throughout the organization.

Location: I am interested in living and working in
the United States or Mexico.

Part 1 Overview

WILLIAM S. PAGE

Senior Consultant

Mr. Page has extensive experience as a senior consultant to government,
private, and international organizations.His areas of specialization
include modelling and simulation of complex systems, design and development
of information systems, very large databases with images, text and
structured data, and advanced Web-based applications.His areas of
expertise include computer databases, management information
systems, financial information systems, multimedia databases,
computer algebra systems, programming languages, secure
telecommunications and computer networks.

Mr. Page spent 6 years as an Economist & Statistician in the
Structural Analysis Division of Statistics Canada. Since 1980 Mr.
Page has operated as an independent consultant. He has been awarded
numerous public and private sector contracts in Canada and abroad.
Work with the Government of Canada has included contract assignments
with the Canadian Patent Office (CPO), Emergency Preparedness Canada,
and Statistics Canada. He also provided technical architect support
to the Treasury Board Infrastructure Project.

Mr. Page has also worked on many informatics projects overseas through
the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Governments of
Ethiopia (Ministry of Finance, Public Service Commission, and the
Addis Ababa Water and Sewage Authority), Egypt (Ministry of Industry)
and Indonesia (Ministry of Industry); the Bank of Uganda; and the
Centre for Informatics and Telecommunications in the former
Yugoslavia.

Mr. Page is currently completing a long term contract at Defence
Research and Development Canada (DRDC) managing a secure information
system including a Tempest computer network.

Mr. Page received a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Computer
Science from the University of Lethbridge in 1974; he has completed
Masters level courses in Systems Engineering at Carleton University,
Ottawa, and Doctorate level courses in Mathematics and Computer Science at
McGill University in Montreal; and has completed various other
professional seminars and courses in Modelling and Simulation, User
Interface Strategies, and Microsoft Windows Software Development.

Mr. Page has over twenty five years of wide and varied experience
as a consultant to government, private and international organizations
in North America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Europe.

In High School, 1969-70, I wrote a "treatise" on general relativity titled: "The Unification of Physics" [PDF] (Warning: The quality is poor and the content is probably only of historical interest to me.) For two years I also took evening courses at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and the University of Calgary on electronics and computer programming (Fortran on IBM 1401 punch card system and PL/1 on IBM/360).

Part 5 Professional Experience

The following list of previous jobs and contracts has been divided into
two categories - planning & assessment and technical. Some
assignments that fell into both categories may be repeated.

Planning and assessment

Treasury Board, Ottawa, April 2000 - June 2002; Industry Canada June 2002 - June 2004Provide support to the Infrastructure Project at the planning, acquisition,
and assessment stages in the area of RFP development, vendor
assessment, systems assessment, technical architecture, network
architecture, web server configuration, system quality assurance,
verification and validation, for SIMSI. SIMSI is the web-based
system used across Canada by various levels of government, to apply
for and track infrastructure projects

Elections Canada, November 2000 - May 2001Provide support in RFP assessment, clarification, and rating for the
automation of the election process

Canadian Patent Office (CPO), Hull, March - December 1996As part of the Continuous Improvement Program for TechSource (the
Canadian automated patent system), identify and assess alternative
approaches to the delivery of information to industry and the public
by means of multimedia systems.

Bank of Uganda (Uganda), January - March 1994Assess the existing environment and provide advice regarding the
modernization of management information systems and financial
management information systems for the Bank and, confirm the hardware
and software requirements.

Addis Ababa Water and Sewage Authority (Ethiopia), April - November 1992Assess existing environment and develop requirements for management
information and financial management systems for the Authority AAWSA
and, identify the requirements for additional hardware and software
and infrastructure requirements (TCP/IP) to strengthen the existing
computer facilities.

Canadian Patent Office (CPO), Hull, February 1990- December 1992The development of evaluation criteria and rating factors for the
workflow and other support software aspects of the CPO RFP for
TechSource - the Canadian Automated Patent System.

Ministry of Industry, Government of Indonesia, Djakarta, Indonesia,
October - December 1991Under contract with UNIDO provide advice on networking and
telecommunications systems for the Ministry of Industry of the
Government of Indonesia.

Public Service Commission (Ethiopia),
April - July 1989, September - November 1990Provide advice on appropriate full automation for the Public Service
Commission, identifying alternative paths and long term
strategies; design of the automated system; equipment specification
and selection.

Ministry of Industry, Cairo, Egypt,
November 1989 - March 1990Conduct analysis of needs, identification of users, and prepare functional
system design of an information system for the Ministry. The purpose
of this system was to assist with the effective management and
co-ordination of research and development institutes associated with
the Ministry. Under contract to UNIDO.

Canadian Patent Office, Hull,
January 1988 - January 1990Provide advice to CPO management on the automation of the CPO in areas of:
planning framework and tools, system design, database design,
technology assessment and training. Evaluate the file and data
integrity of the existing paper-based patent files and indices and
make recommendations regarding their state for conversion, as well as
assessing alternative techniques for backfile capture with emphasis
on image scanning and storage, and optical character recognition
software. Provide management support to the in-house data capture
project which integrated optical disk storage of images and text and
Calera character recognition hardware. Prepare feasibility studies
of integrated text and image, and build prototypes for piloting
purposes

Ministry of Finance, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
May - June 1988Advise on the computerization strategy for Ethiopian Government financial
institutions ONCCP, OSCFER, as well as the Ministry of Finance as
part of the overall institutional strengthening study of these
institutions. Specifically addressed issues of co-ordinating
relationships and communications requirements, as well as reviewing
management training needs.

Technical

Department of National Defence/Defence Research and Development Canada, Ottawa,
March 1997 - February 1999; March 1999 - current [URL]Key member of a small team providing on-site and off-site support to the
organization in fulfilling their mandate of developing "electronic
information services to document and communicate corporate
intellectual capital". Mr. Page is the primary CANDIS System
Administrator responsible for project management, database and web
server development, and back-up for web server applications support
and maintenance.

The activities include the provision of technical and software support
for the maintenance of computer systems and the development of web
applications for knowledge management. The main component of the
system is CANDIS, which is a classified integrated scientific and
technical library system running under OpenText LiveLink Collections
server with multiple bibliographic databases and a complete suite of
modules for library and document management. The system is
web-accessible and has both classified and unclassified components.The
work involves: working with, maintaining, and supporting (includes
applying upgrades and enhancements) LiveLink Collections Sever
(formerly called BASIS or BASIS/Plus); database design, optimization,
and maintenance; detailed system operations including
trouble-shooting and supporting the in-house operator; using web
tools and technology (XML, CGI, HTML, JSP, ASP and SGML) to develop
and to manage and oversee the development of web interfaces to
support a diverse scientific user community in both classified and
unclassified activities including interactive forms, data
manipulation and collection development; supporting electronic
publishing and PDF document workflow and document preparation and
delivery; extensive use of Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft WORD and LaTeX;
using and managing Tempest equipment; supporting a cluster of Linux
servers in an HP Blade environment; UNIX operating system on a SUN
servers; working with and supporting a legacy VMS operating system on
the VAX hardware; supporting and writing programs in Python, Perl,
C and FORTRAN; managing and operating the TCP/IP networks;
supporting and using the MS/WINDOWS with MS/OFFICE on IBM compatible
personal computers (workstations); implementing, working with and
managing Apache web and Netscape servers including overseeing their
original installation at DRDC/DSIS; support the design, maintenance,
and configuration of search engines; working with and support the
electronic document delivery system which use high speed, high volume
scanners, a variety of laser printers including Tempest, optical disk
jukeboxes, and high speed imaging interfaces; website design for the
DRDC/DSIS websites, user help pages (both English and French in two
versions - for public and internal use); development of new
web-based applications; configuring Internet mail servers. Extensive
operational knowledge of National Defence Security Policy security
regulations and Tempest computer security policies and procedures is
required.

Treasury Board (Infrastructure Canada), Ottawa,
April 2000 - June 2002;
Industry Canada (Infrastructure Canada),
June 2002 - 2004Provide support to the Infrastructure Project for the development,
deployment, and on-going improvement of SIMSI - the web-based system
used across Canada by various levels of government, to apply for and
track infrastructure projects. The work included the development of
web portals for users, web pages and interfaces; applying HTML -
CGI scripting and also assessing its use by the Vendor; evaluating
and tuning the system for performance; advising on and assisting in
implementing network security for the SIMSI network; assessing and
validating the web application delivered by the vendor to Treasury
Board; ensuring the consistent and correct use of Government Common
Look and Feel for web applications; using email to deliver comments
from websites; using browsers for full web-enabled functionality to
the public. Document security regulations and procedures were in
effect in this environment.

Ontario Ministry of Health, Kingston, October, 1999Deliver a short course on Computer Systems Performance Simulation Basics.
In a hands-on workshop provide practical advice and learning by example.
Participants gain experience with discrete event simulation using GPSS on a PC workstation and build
a simple working simulation model of a new computer system.

Department of National Defence/DSIS (Defence Scientific Information Systems),
Ottawa,
May - February 1997To implement systems to deliver CANDIS/ALERT search results to DSIS
clients by e-mail as well as the World Wide Web and MOSAIC via the
Internet in a TCP/IP protocol; develop programs to automatically
generate HTML coded documents. This work involved the use of the
CANDIS and CANDID systems under BASIS/Plus; use of VAX and Sun
environments. Supported hardware/software upgrades, provided system
maintenance, handled system operations, and undertook development and
implementation of system enhancements for the bibliographic
information system CANDIS, running under BASISPLUS on a VAX platform;
evaluated software for document publishing and conducted a variety of
tests to confirm the viability of a high speed image interface to the
system. National Defence Security Policy document security
regulations and procedures were in day-to-day use as were Tempest
computer security policies and procedures. Used email and internet
browsers on a day-to-day basis to carry out duties; used Fortran and
C as well as Perl to develop procedures for the environment.

Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Hull, May 1996 - June 1998The Canadian automated patent system, TechSource, is an on-line system
that is used to manage the Canadian Patent Office. It uses
interfaces for document capture including scanning, imaging, storage
to jukeboxes for near-line retrieval, and optical character
recognition; high speed laser printers are used for delivering hard
copy of the images. The database has over 2 million patents in both
image and text form and is available on-line both internally and
externally using TCP/IP and IBM TCP/IP equivalent protocols; the
system supports a full workflow and a full-text search. The work
involved coordinating, testing, and providing operational procedures
for the import/export modules of the TechSource; developing programs
in C for theses modules; prototyping the delivery of retrieval
services on using the Internet - this involved developing web pages
for demonstration and proof of concept - using a variety of
scripting languages such as HTML and SGML. Security regulations and
procedures were in force here. Email was used on a day-to-day basis
for communication.

DND - Defense Scientific Information Systems, Ottawa,
May - November 1995To develop a PC workstation-based user interface and other enhancements
for the CANDIS/ALERT selective dissemination of information system as
well as a user\u2019s guide for this system and, design, optimize, and
maintain for the duration of the contract, the SDI database under
BASIS/PLUS. Workstations used MS Office components; CANDIS ran in a
BASIS/Plus environment under VAX VMS; it was a classified system in a
Tempest environment; DND security regulations and procedures, and
Tempest regulations and procedures were in force here. Experiments
were undertaken using Perl; programs for the interface were written
using C and Fortran. Email was used as a communications tool on a
day-to-day basis.

Canadian Patent Office (CPO), Hull,
February 1990 - December 1992A reference simulation model for evaluation of architectures for
TechSource, was developed and used in vendor evaluation. The model
incorporated high speed imaging, near-line optical jukebox storage;
optical character recognition, TCP/IP environment, and other
components that would be expected in such a solution. Email was used
as a communication medium.

Emergency Preparedness Canada, Ottawa,
March - November 1992
This work was focused on the design and implementation of an automated
daily incident log and reporting system for EPC. The work involved
analyzing user requirements; designing the system based on the
Windows graphical user interface and PC network database system; and
implementing it using ObjectVision. Security regulations and
procedures were in force here. The environment was a Tempest
environment including Tempest laser printers and workstations.
TCP/IP protocol was applied for connectivity. Email was used as a
communication medium

Privy Council Office, Ottawa, November 1991 - June 1992The Privy Council Office was an early user of BASIS Plus, using it for
newswire data. Under this contract, the work was to design and
implement a real-time system to capture live newswire feeds on a
database, from satellite and other sources, with real-time alert
support, for delivery to the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy
Council. The feeds were piped to a BASIS/Plus database running under
VAX VMS, which was used to send the alerts to designated users,
according to their stored profiles. Database design, optimization,
and maintenance were an integral part of the project. Both Fortran
and C were used for programming. Security regulations and procedures
were in force here.

Ministry of Industry, Government of Indonesia, Djakarta,
Indonesia September - October 1991Assess the management of a network of Unix workstations and provide advice
on configuration and hardware/software upgrades.

Department of Indian and Northern Development (Canada),
Hull, April 1990 - June 1991Work under this contract involved implementing a correspondence tracking
system combining the screen-oriented user interface of the Cognos
Powerhouse fourth generation language with the text retrieval
capabilities of MINISIS, in a MINISIS bibliographic environment.

Immigration Refugee Board (Canada),
Ottawa, May 1990 - September 1991Design and implement a prototype textual retrieval information system for
the Documentation Centre of IRB, on an IBM mainframe (VM/CMS).

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),
Hull, 1989Under this contract, a feasibility study was conducted and a logical design
was developed, for a system for the capture and retrieval of project
documentation and records management files in a distributed network
environment, dealing with documents already in electronic form as
well as documents received as paper copy. The design included the
scanning and conversion to image and/or text of the paper documents,
storage of such documents on an optical disk attached to the network
server and retrieved via assigned keywords as well as the indexed
text content of the documents. Components of the design were piloted
at CIDA.

Canadian Patent Office, Hull, January
1988 - November 1990As part of the automation of the Canadian Patent Office, the work under
this contract was to develop a prototype data capture system for
obtaining high resolution digital images of patent documents, which
included scanning and image capture, conversion of image data to text
where appropriate via character recognition software, extraction of
relevant key fields for use in on-line searching, and compression of
the result for storage on archival magnetic tape cartridges.
High-end workstations (Sun and Apollo) were tested, along with IBM
compatible PCs. A network consisting of IBM compatible personal
computers with a digital scanner, laser printer, optical jukebox, and
high resolution displays ran an integrated set of software
written in C, Microsoft windows, Calera, and other commercial
software packages. Components (Word, Excel, Project) of what is
currently known as MS/Office were used on the workstations and
integrated into the process.The work involved managing and supporting
the in-house data capture pilot. A prototype patent examiner display
work station was prepared with images stored on CDROM and
image/text display on high resolution monitors. The file and data
integrity of the CPO patent files and indices were evaluated using
programs written in Fortran to compare data to data available
commercially, and alternative techniques for backfile capture with
emphasis on image scanning and storage, and optical character
recognition software, were assessed. Security regulations and
procedures were in force here.

Centre for Informatics and Telecommunications (ZIT) in Split, Yugoslavia,
March - June 1987On contract to UNIDO to assess the potential ways and means of
telecommunications and networking between various computer systems
used by the for the development of a database of industrial
applications programs throughout the former Yugoslavia, and to
prototype and pilot some possible solutions. The information was held
in both a bibliographic database and a relational database; TCP/IP
protocol was employed; programming was involved using both Fortran
and C.

UNIDO, Beijing, January - February 1986Support was provided to the Ministry of Machine Building Industry of China
in the implementation of a Chinese character processing
facility in MINISIS, and in providing training in the development of
new MINISIS processors and external routines which could be in any
supported programming language such as FORTRAN.

CENAGRI (Brazil), Brasilia,
November - December, 1984, May - June 1985Design and implement a programming language based on Pascal and C to
facilitate the translation of selected portions of the MINISIS system
for use on a mini computer manufactured in Brazil.

Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, Ottawa, 1983 [PDF]Design and implement a general purpose language called EVALUATE (extended
vector algebra language) for manipulating generalized vector-like
expressions in a large highly structured technical database. Vectors
are treated as morphisms in a concrete category over SET. Algebraic
operations are inherited from SET viewed as a topos. The resulting
language and interpreter written in C allows large time series
datasets to be manipulated in large-scale structural models of the
economy running on a desktop computer and unix.

International Development Research Centre,
Ottawa, March - November 1981Development of current awareness alert software for MINISIS.

Government of Canada, Statistics Canada,
Ottawa, April 1975 - March 1981Employed as economist/statistician. Work included designing simulation
models for various sectors of the economy - working on VAX under VMS and
UNIX, in Fortran and in C. Security regulations and procedures were
in force here. Pioneered the use of email in the Structural Analysis
Division at Statistics Canada - exchanging mail with researchers
working on joint projects at the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis in Vienna.